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The last weekend of September, I was invited to do a book signing at Coles in Red Deer and put a few of my books on consignment. I had always planned on doing a sigining since I’ve started this journey, but never got around to it. Now, after just re-releasing The Eye of Verishten, I decided it was time to get into bookstores.

I came to this event like I do any other convention. I set up the ol’ diorama, bookmarks, and stacked my books accordingly. The staff were very helpful and attentive, being sure to let customers know I was there and to check out my books.

I didn’t expect crowds of people to line up at my table. Parkland Mall on a Saturday isn’t exactly bustling these days. The outcome fell more or less in line with those expectations, emphasis on less.

I was incredibly bored for the first half of the day with few people coming by and little to no interaction. When people did come up to me, they had no real interest in the fantasy genre. For the few that did like fantasy, they were turned off by the high price. Admittedly, I only had the hardcovers. In addition to the store markup and GST, the book price would set someone back $40 as opposed to the $30 I sell at conventions. I think if I had softcovers there, I would have had more takers.

Of course, I can’t complain too much. I had some visitors to keep me company in the last half of the day. First, my nana came to get her own copy signed. She even helped convince one woman to buy who was unsure because of the cover. The second visitor was none other than my con buddy Vince, whose support is always appreciated.

As I always try to look at the bright side with these things, I calculated my sales out of total interactions to get an idea of my conversion rate. Turns out, I didn’t do too bad compared to how I do at conventions. Edmonton’s conversion rate was approximately 50% and at Coles it was 44%. Had I had paperbacks, that conversion rate may have been higher. Therefore, I’ll take that as a success either way.

At least I got out in my home town, made some money, and the bag of sweet swag Coles gave to me afterward didn’t suck either.

That’s all for a while folks. Next con is the Calgary Holiday Market, however, with how things are progressing with BD Book 2, I may have to skip it this year and hunker down. Sorry to any Calgary supporters hoping to find me there. I’m hoping to get into Calgary Expo in April 2019, but it all depends on whether I can take the time off of my day job. Here’s hoping!